


Care Package

by intothecest



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Camping, Gen, Gravity Falls Is Weird, Mabel Pines' Sweaters, Only Pinecesty If Your Mind Trends That Way Already, Post-Canon, Post-Gravity Falls, Protective Siblings, Returning to Gravity Falls, Self-Acceptance, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 13:39:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14853827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intothecest/pseuds/intothecest
Summary: Dipper's got a camping trip planned with some of the guys, but before he goes, Mabel's got a care package for him.





	Care Package

With a slight grunt, Dipper deposited the nearly stuffed duffle bag by the door, as he spoke on the phone. “Yeah, they’re on their way… I gotta go, Mom… yeah, I love you too. I don’t know if I’ll be able to, cell service is kind of spotty there. No, relax, nothing’s going to happen. I won’t even be gone that long…. yeah… okay. Tell Dad I said bye, okay?" He hung up and rolled his eyes where nobody could see. Of course he loved his parents, but they could be worriers. That was why he planned this trip to start while they were away at work. He especially didn’t want Mom making a big scene of hugging him in front of his friends. 

There was one person he needed to say goodbye to, though, one that had to be in person. Although he didn’t want this goodbye to be in front of his friends, either. "Mabel?” he called out. “Just about ready to go…”

She didn’t answer in words, but he heard a wild trample of footsteps from upstairs, and then Mabel’s stocking covered legs appeared, followed by her skirt and a tank-top, one of the ones she silkscreened herself with a picture of a lion in a really fancy suit, and then her head, with flowing long hair bouncing wildly. On her face was the look of somebody trying to catch a flight. 

She was coming for him at such high speed that for a moment Dipper was sure she was going to barrel into him, or maybe jump on him, launching into what she’d referred to as a ‘glomp’ sometimes, a hug where her feet left the floor and wrapped around him. 

To his disappointment, she skidded to the stop at the last minute, standing in front of him. It had been a long time since she’d glomped him… it was one of those things, like tickle-fights and wrestling matches and snuggling up to each other in bed, that just somehow seemed no longer entirely appropriate now that they were well into their teenage years. Maybe even that wasn’t the real problem, maybe it was just that they each worried too much that the other thought it would be inappropriate. Mabel could have been going in for a glomp but then changed her mind at the last minute. 

Whether it was an self-censored glomp or not, at least one thing was clear, she wasn’t going to give up a chance to see him off, and that warmed him inside. “Have fun, you dork,” she said, slightly out of breath from her mad dash down the stairs. The light teasing underscored the truth behind the next words. “I wish I was going with you.”

“I do too…” he said, surprising himself. He spoke quickly to clarify. “Well, not really. I mean, the whole point is that this is a guy’s camping trip, so I couldn’t exactly bring you along. Besides, you’d distract everybody with your…”

“Feminine wiles?” Mabel supplied when he was unable to complete the sentence on his own. She grinned like it was all a big joke. 

He was going to say beauty, but “Sure." It was why he really didn’t want her on this trip… if nothing else, there was no way he’d be able to enjoy it while constantly worrying about whether the other guys were hitting on his sister, or worse, sneaking off to make out with her. "And you’ve got your art thing, and even if you didn’t… I’m sure you wouldn’t really want to be going with us either. We’re going to be really roughing it, you know, camping out in the woods, cleaning ourselves in an ice cold stream if we wash ourselves at all." He made a conscious effort to stop himself, feeling that he’d begun rambling, and then realized that he needed to say one more thing. "But… well, I guess I’m just going to miss you.”

“Yeah… me too. You know… you don’t HAVE to prove anything to these guys.”

That made him suppress a wince, because what she said did hit close to home. He hoped this trip would be fun, but… it really was about proving something to his friends. And his not-quite friends. He’d only legitimately call two of the guys going on the trip his friends. The other two were classmates, and friends of his friends… but not the type of guys he’d normally choose to hang out with. The problem was, his friends were starting to get closer to these new guys, and unless he made a real effort to integrate into the new group that was forming, it might leave Dipper on the outside of it. Making friends always felt more complicated and difficult for him than it seemed to be for everybody else, and now he was worried he was starting to lose the few good friends he had. Already he’d become the butt of jokes for being the wuss of the group… just because he wasn’t the typical alpha male type and would rather read a book than watch sports. Even his “real” friends had started to snicker when their new friends made cracks about Dipper’s noodle-arms or suggested he might cry at some trivial thing or be too chicken to do something.

Of course, Mabel sometimes called him a dork or a wuss too, but it never hurt coming from her. It was the kind of teasing you’re allowed to do with somebody you’re so comfortable with that you know they don’t really mean to hurt, where any insult is like a game, like the wrestling they used to do. She’d even told him once, “When I call you a dork it’s okay, because I realize it’s really a good thing." 

With his friends, and especially Tyler and Blake, his not-quite-friends, the teasing had a hard, painful edge, like Dipper wasn’t good enough, like he had no business hanging around because he wasn’t as brave or cool as them. Dipper wasn’t sure they were entirely wrong, either… that was what really hurt. When they were discussing going on a road trip to celebrate summer vacation, the idea of driving down to Mexico and doing all sorts of unsavory things was kicked around as a real possibility… and Dipper knew, deep down, he’d probably bail on that trip. People got robbed and kidnapped in Mexico, and they could be forced into being drug mules. Maybe he really was a wuss. 

On the other hand, maybe some of the other guys weren’t as bold as they pretended to be, either, because someone suggested the idea of just going camping, and that plan seemed to gain steam. The plan also became a lifeline for Dipper… it was not only something he could feel comfortable doing, but he thought of a way he could up the ante on it and win some respect. 

Their initial plans focused on just going to a famous national park campground, like Yosemite. Dipper made a big show of scoffing at that, told them that real men went out and really roughed it in a place without park rangers, just in the woods, where you can face actual danger. That was when he started telling them all about the forests of Oregon, especially around a town called Gravity Falls. He didn’t tell them everything he’d done in those woods… nobody would believe him. But he did tell the truth about some of the things that did happen… like the time a wolf chewed on his leg (still better than attending a girl’s sleepover), the spider the size of a cow (they thought he was exaggerating), and the Multibear (it wasn’t his fault if he mumbled and they heard that he encountered "multiple bears”). By the end, he’d gone too far, and they became certain he was making it up. The group was so confident in their belief that anything he could take, they could… so he went all out, and bet them that he’d last long than them, that there was no way they would last the whole week. If he won, and they bailed before him, they couldn’t ever call him a wuss, weak, or any other insult about his manliness. If he lost, and they lasted the whole week, or if Dipper fled first, he’d have to suffer a punishment chosen by Tyler… he would have to wear a girly dress and makeup every time he went to a party up until graduation. 

It was a stupid punishment in Dipper’s mind… it’s not like dressing like a girl, or for that matter being a girl, was inherently any less respectable or meant you were any less tough. Heck, his old Gravity Falls crush Wendy Corduroy was tougher than any of these guys. Mabel probably was too, by some measures. And, if it came down to it, thanks to his sister’s makeovers, he knew he could rock a dress and make it look good. It wasn’t his choice for what to wear, but he’d refuse to let it be humiliating. 

Or so he told himself. The truth was, as dumb as he felt the punishment was, people in his school were far less enlightened, and they would laugh and make fun of him, and his “friends” most of all. The thought of having to suffer through that at every party was daunting… but at the same time, he had an ace up his sleeve. He knew enough secrets of Gravity Falls to be able to take them somewhere that would scare the pants off them. So he took the bet, expecting to win and trying not to think too much about losing. 

“It’s no biggie, Mabel. It’s just guys bonding stuff. I’ll be back before you know it with a bunch of pictures and stories of how dumb everybody was.”

“I’ll hold you to that." 

They stared at one another, and he looked towards the door, and said, "Well, I guess I’d better…”

“Wait!” She held up one finger, and then ran back upstairs, and, a few seconds later, back downstairs. “I made this for you. To take on your trip. It’s an emergency care package." She handed over a large wrapped bundle, with label stickers all over it saying things like "Open in case of emergency!” . 

He hefted the package, squeezing it, feeling a lot of give. It was large and soft, but not especially heavy. His voice was flat as he said, “It’s a sweater, isn’t it?” He appreciated the gesture, really, but there was no way he could see himself wearing one of Mabel’s gaudy sweaters in front of his friends. 

Mabel made a face, a sort of pinched frown. “No guessing,” she said. “Just open it when the time is right.”

“When the time is right…”

She raised her hand to point at him, sort of wagging her finger. “You’ll know." 

He grinned and shook his head. "I know it’s a sweater, Mabel.”

One of Mabel’s arms stretched behind her as she arched her back, thrusting her chest in his direction, as though she was just working out a kink. “I promise you it’s not a sweater, Dipper.”

“You’re crossing your fingers behind your back aren’t you?”

Her eyes widened, then her poker face was back. “No I’m not,” she said. But her hand was still behind her back. She was crossing her fingers about having crossed her fingers. 

He shook his head once more and this time snorted at her antics. “Okay, fine." There was just barely enough room for it in his duffle bag, so he bent down and stuffed it inside, then pulled some other stuff from below it on top so it wouldn’t be the first thing anybody saw if he opened it. "Thanks, Mabes.”

When he stood up again, they stared at each other, and Mabel bounced gently with one foot curling behind the other, as though she was scratching the back of her leg, and only then did Dipper wonder why he was looking at her legs and force his gaze upwards. 

“Anyway, you have fun with your mural painting… hopefully I’ll be back for the big unveiling." It was a part of a community art project for the summer, small groups of teenagers getting to decorate one of several buildings around town. Mabel was in charge of her team and was still in the brainstorming phase… her room was overflowing with sketches, ranging from a simple sunset to cyborg half-cat-half-man riding a giant flying seahorse into battle against machine-gun-toting gorilla with a telephone for a head, which was supposed to somehow represent the dangers of corporate influence on the electoral system. 

She shoved his shoulder playfully. "You’d better be." 

A honk drew his attention outside, then another, and another, from his impatient friends who had just pulled up in Tyler’s car and couldn’t be bothered to come to the door. He looked out the window and confirmed it was them, then said, "Well, I’d better be going.” As he turned back to get one last look at Mabel, he was surprised, she was rushing towards him for a hug. His arms wrapped around her and he smiled as she squeezed him tightly.

“I am going to miss you, Dipper. Be safe, okay?”

“Of course. And I will miss you too." He didn’t want to let go for some reason, but another honk made him realize he had to, or it would start to get weird. If it hadn’t already. But, Mabel hadn’t let go either, only pulling away when he finally dropped his arms. 

He gave her one last smile, then lifted the duffel bag over his shoulder and headed out to the car waiting to pick him up. As they pulled away, he waved one more time to Mabel through the window.

*****

Dipper was not sleeping well. The first problem was that it was cold… with his sleeping bag long gone, the only thing between his body and the forest floor were the clothes he was wearing when the camp got trampled, a t-shirt and shorts. But it wasn’t just the cold, sleeping on the ground was hard and uncomfortable, especially when he accidentally rolled into some pine needles. Everyone knows pine needles hurt.

The final problem was the noise of the forest. Owls hooting, bugs, the infrequent wolf-like screams of the Howler (a tree-living creature that looked like a cross between a monkey and a bat, but who actually turned out to be a really nice guy, and just had terrible night terrors about his youth being bullied by Manotaurs), not to mention rustles of bushes and the soft sound of crying. Wait, crying?

Dipper pushed himself off the forest floor and fished out his phone. There was no service out here, but he had an app that let him use it as a flashlight. There was no sense tripping on an exposed root and hurting himself. 

Finding the source of the crying was remarkably easy. Finding Tyler huddled up under a tree branch, face damp, filled him with mixed feelings, especially when the guy shrieked as the light came over him. This was the guy who made the most fun of him, and yet… he kind of felt bad for the guy. Maybe he went too far. 

"Tyler, it’s me, man.”

“Dipsh… Dipper?” He squinted into the light. It must have been impossible to see who was behind it, and Dipper had been telling them all sorts of stories about the crazy creatures… one of which was the Will of the Wasp, a giant nocturnal insect that shines a ghostly light on its prey immediately before rushing forward and stinging it with a paralytic venom that turns it into a zombie-like slave. Ah, memories. They didn’t believe him then, but, after what happened earlier that night, it was quite possible Tyler’s initial scream was because he thought the light was yet another monster Dipper had mentioned.

So, he was willing to let the automatic insult about his name slide. At least Tyler had the sense to cut it off before he completed it. “What are you doing here?”

Tyler stood up, his old bravado returning now that Dipper didn’t turn out to be a monster. “Same as you… ever since those… things tore up our camp, I’ve been wandering around lost." His voice was casual, confident, but the tears drying on his face suggested maybe it was an act.

"I’m not lost,” Dipper said.

“Sure,” Tyler said, in that tone that said he didn’t believe it for a second.

“No, seriously." He pointed. "There’s a road not far that way. Just follow it south for a few miles and you can find a hotel. That’s where the other guys are." He’d ran with them just to make sure they were safe, then turned around and went back into the woods. The rules of the bet said that they’d be scared off before he would. If he left at the same time, he’d leave himself open to the accusation that he was scared too. That was why he had to stay at least one night out here alone.

"So.. why are you out here?”

This was it, Dipper’s big chance to prove himself a badass to Tyler. “Dude, I came out here to camp, not sleep in a hotel.”

“But… but… those things!”

“How did YOU get stuck out here?” he asked, trying not to sound concerned. “What happened to the car?" When the camp was overrun, everybody scattered… but Tyler ran for the car and drove off without anybody else. That was why it was so surprising to find him out here… everybody had assumed he’d be long gone.

"I got lost in these stupid woods,” he said. “And ran into a ditch, and then one of those things was outside, so I just bailed, man! I wasn’t going to let him eat me!”

As fearsome as they were, Dipper was never scared. Oh, the first time he saw them, years ago, he was, but then Mabel discovered they were herbivores who especially loved licorice. That was why, and how, he lured them to the camp. They were some kind of experiment by a rogue genetic engineer, now gone wild. They hibernated most of the time, and woke up approximately once a year to feed, but he knew how to wake them up early. And a swarm of oversized, glowing-eyed ravenous tentacled black goats was just the thing to scare the others and not harm anybody. Except, like goats, they weren’t very picky eaters, and would chew on fabric, plastic, virtually anything that didn’t taste like meat. So, their tents were destroyed, and Blake got his clothes mostly eaten off, and Tyler’s car’s wheels might well be missing some rubber, but he himself wasn’t actually in any danger.

Though… that reminded him of something. “Where’s the car now?”

Tyler waved. “It’s back there somewhere." 

"Come on, let’s go find it…”

“Those things…”

“They’re long gone,” he said. 

“We need to be getting out of here, man!”

“You can go ahead, if you want. It’s down that way. But I’m going for the car, it’s freezing out here, and I want to get something from my duffel bag." He left it in the car specifically so it would be safe from the locust goats… he hadn’t counted on Tyler running for it and leaving them all behind. 

"But… but… I don’t have a light!”

“Fine, I’ll lead you out, after we check out the car. Besides, we can tag where the car is with my phone’s GPS, and get a tow truck out tomorrow. I know a guy in town." His old buddy Soos bought a tow truck, supposedly for the Shack’s off-season, only he never wound up making any money off it. He thought it was cooler to roam the town, towing anybody who’d broken down for free, while dressed in a superhero cape and mask with a shirt that had a hook logo on his chest. It looked an awful lot like an upside-down question mark… so much so that Dipper wondered if the guy just accidentally put a logo on one of his shirts upside-down by accident and just ran with it. He smiled to himself at the thought, then looked to Tyler, who still seemed unsure. "Don’t worry Tyler, you’re with me.”

They found the car something like half an hour later. The tires were eaten away, but there was no sign of any of the goat-things. Except… one of the doors were open, and as they got closer, Dipper noticed that not only had much of the upholstery had been eaten away, but also his bag had been ripped into. “No… no, no, no…” Tyler said. “My car!”

Dipper sighed. “You couldn’t shut the door behind you as you were fleeing in terror, could you?" Dipper turned the car’s light on, which luckily still worked, and began sorting through the torn clothing. Nothing left that he could wear, although there was a flashlight he could take, or give Tyler, and a firestarting kit. It wasn’t a total loss, but it’d be a while before he could get warm again. Then he noticed something shiny on the floor, shiny and wrinkly. It was Mabel’s care package. He’d almost forgotten about it. 

He pulled it out, turned it over in his hands. There was a tear along the corner, but that was it, and he soon realized why. It wasn’t just a sweater after all. Mabel had included emergency snacks, including some beef jerky that stuck out of the hole, and the goats took one bite and rejected the whole package.

He smiled and shook his head, then tore into the wrapping paper. If anything counted as an emergency, this did. Beef jerky and, surprisingly, cookies went flying everywhere, and he knew he’d be collecting them later, but, right now, what he needed more than anything was a sweater. As much as he’d made fun of it before, it was all he wanted at that moment. He shook it to unfold it so he could get a good look. It was white, with blue sleeves, and there was even a little pocket on the belly he could stick his hands in and warm himself. She really had thought of everything.

But the part that really touched him was the home-made stitched design on the chest. It was two of the blue pine-tree shapes, the kind he had on his hat for so long, with stick-figure arms engaged in a fist-bump. Below that was written, "Super Double Pines Powers Activate!" 

It was incredibly dorky. And adorable. And he realized that he missed Mabel more than anything else in the world. He pulled the sweater up to his face… it even smelled like her. Actually, it smelled like fabric softener, beef jerky, and cinnamon ginger cookies, but that actually made a fair approximation of what his sister smelled like, and there was something indefinable extra… he was sure she’d worn it at least once, to make sure there were the right number of holes. 

He gathered up the jerky and cookies, and the sweater, and finally pulled himself out of the car. Tyler looked relieved, like he expected that maybe Dipper’s face might have suddenly been eaten off while he was down there, and then watched him carefully. "Hold these,” Dipper said, and thrust the food and other doo-dads into Tyler’s hands, then pulled the sweater over his head. 

It was still cold, but that felt so much better. He put his hands in the pouch, felt something crinkly. There was another tiny wrapped bundle of cookies, another chunk of jerky, and… a piece of paper.

He pulled that out, looked at it with his phone light, retrieved from his pants. “Hey, Bro-Bro: Don’t let anybody fool you into thinking you’re not amazing. They’re lying to you." He looked up to Tyler, the worst of his frenemies, who was still staring at him, this time with a weird look on his face. 

"What?”

“Nothing, just the sweater looks kind of…”

“Dorky? Girly?" He shook his head, letting the snark he’d been suppressing for so long finally creep into his voice. He was so done trying to impress him. "Well guess what, Tyler. I AM dorky. And sometimes, I like girly things. There’s nothing wrong with that. So sure, I sing along to Disney movies. I listen to BABBA. I’d rather read a good book than get hammered in a parking lot. And sometimes I write fanfiction where Professor Mystery selects me to accompany him to parallel worlds." And Mabel, of course. After all, both of them could easily fit in the Professor’s VERTIS (Vortex Engine Rotating Through Interdimensional Space), shaped like a little pub and full of infinite food and drink for the Professor and his friends, so they could refresh and charge after fighting Goth Nazis and Robo-Texans… sometimes it took a long time for the VERTIS to rotate back to any particular world, so he couldn’t imagine leaving her behind. "So you can call me any name I want, make fun of me to the others, and you know what? I don’t care. I’m still going to lead you out of the woods and to the hotel. Because I don’t bail on my friends. That’s the kind of guy I am." Of course, he was also the kind of guy to arrange an attack by scary-though-harmless abominations of nature in order to look good in front of his friends… but nobody’s perfect. 

"I was going to say it looks warm." Tyler said, and Dipper knew he was lying, but wouldn’t press it. "We going?”

“Sure.”

He gave Tyler the flashlight from his bag, and used the one on his phone for himself, and led the way towards town. A minute in, Tyler said, “You know, that Professor Mystery show is actually mad cool. Kind of wish the VERTIS would show up here, though, I’m starving.”

Great, Dipper grumbled to himself. Now I have something in common with him. Objectively he knew that was probably a good thing, but he couldn’t help the sense that one of his private geeky likes had been invaded by somebody who’d been making his life unpleasant recently. Then he let the feeling pass. “Yeah. Have some jerky.”

“Hey, you’re not going to tell the other guys I was crying, are you?”

“Nah, they’d never believe me anyway,” he said, like it was inconsequential. Dipper knew, and that’s all that mattered. And with that knowledge came a sense of peace. Maybe he didn’t need to come back and spend a night in the woods, maybe he could check into the hotel and be warm and comfortable. And if they called him on never technically winning the bet, so what? He had nothing to prove. They had to prove to him that they deserved to be his friends… and he’d give them the chance, but he wasn’t going to take any crap from them either, not anymore.

It was something he should have known all along, but it took just the right circumstances to make him see what somebody who really cared for him had been saying all along. 

He couldn’t wait until he got home, so he could sweep his sister up in a big hug, and thank her for her care package. 

It was exactly what he needed. 

The End


End file.
